


Look Back: The Voyage South

by AVegetarianCannibal



Series: Slice of Life [6]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Prequel, Sailing, Separation Anxiety, Sexual Frustration, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-09 15:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15270300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal
Summary: As they leave their old lives behind, Will comes to a realization about just how badly he aches for Hannibal. Naturally, it turns him on as nearly as much as it makes him miserable.





	Look Back: The Voyage South

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shukkhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shukkhy/gifts).



> This is a flashback to what happened after the fall and before we see them in Mexico in the [first installment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13377942) of this series.

**Running Aground**

  
There's so much pain, Will can't even tell where it's coming from. He lies there with the sound of the waves in his ears, and tries to concentrate so he can determine if anything is broken. Certainly something is broken, but what? His entire body feels like an exposed nerve.

"You were so close," a vaguely familiar voice says above him.

He blinks, but there's sand in his eyes. He can just make out the silhouette of a woman. "Am I going to live?"

"If it were up to me? No." Now he realizes it's Chiyoh. "But your death would be a greater cage than anything Hannibal has suffered before. So, yes. You're going to live. Possibly."

Will looks around as best he can. His heart began racing at the mention of Hannibal's name and drums in his ears now. "Where---"

"He's already in the car," she tells him. "Come with me, his nakama."

When she grabs his hand to throw his arm around her shoulders and hoist him off the ground, the pain puts whatever he was feeling previously to shame. It's so blinding, it shuts down everything in him but the ability to feel it. He can't see, can't scream. He can't even breathe for a few moments.

He's distantly aware of being piled into the back seat of some car, where he slumps against something soft and cold.

"Will?"

"Hannibal?"

Tears spring to his eyes, washing out the sand. His vision improves just enough to see Hannibal leaning against the back seat, underneath him. Even as he curses himself for being so relieved, he uses all his strength to turn his hand up in a gesture of invitation. Hannibal understands, and covers his hand with his own.

Chiyoh gets into the driver's seat and then there's a solid clunk as she shuts the door. The engine starts.

"Where are we going?" Will asks.

"Where do you _want_ to go?" Hannibal asks.

He thinks about all the things he should say. This is, after all, someone who once tried to saw open his head to eat his brain. He _should_ demand to be dropped off at the nearest hospital, by himself, or even returned to the sea, but what comes out of his mouth is, "Away---with you."

Chiyoh sighs. "I was afraid he was going to say that."

She mutters something else under her breath that Will can't understand. Maybe it's too quiet, or maybe it's in Japanese. He gets the feeling it's about him, but he doesn't care about that right now. He blacks out with his head lolling against Hannibal's shoulder as they head into some unknown future.

* * *

 

**Dry Dock**

  
There's a period of time where he's not sure where he is or how far he's traveled. He feels a sharp jab in his forearm and then a beautiful absence of pain washes over him. He swoons at how lovely it feels.

Reality swims in and out of existence. He feels someone touching his body and face, but it seems so distant and unimportant because it's not Hannibal. He catches a glimpse here and there of framed photographs of cats and bunnies. Are they in a veterinarian's office? What the hell? Did Chiyoh blackmail a veterinarian or something? And where is Hannibal?

He's pretty sure he screams the name. So loud it makes his own ears hurt. Someone tells him, "He's right over there." Chiyoh? No, somebody else he doesn't recognize.

Whoever it is cuts his salt-stiff clothes away from his body. He's momentarily shifted onto his side and sees Hannibal on a narrow exam table a few feet away from him. Hannibal has already been freed of his clothes, leaving him completely naked as someone in surgical scrubs works on him.

Will realizes it's wrong to stare at someone's naked body when they're unconscious, but screw it. Hannibal's seen him naked and unconscious before. Fuck, he looks bad. Bruises everywhere, from his shoulders to his hips and all down his legs...

"He has such nice ankles," Will thinks, or maybe he says it out loud. God, he hopes he didn't say it out loud. "Has he always had such beautiful ankles?" They're the finest ankles he's ever seen. It's such a ridiculous thing to notice, especially now, and especially about this particular asshole. But the image of having those ankles up on his shoulders comes to him, unbidden, and he feels a twinge of interest in his dick even despite everything that's currently happening. He groans in despair and embarrassment.

There's another sudden jab in his forearm, shooting him up with another dose of whatever miracle drug took away his pain. The earth doesn't swallow him up for his shamefully inopportune thoughts, but this seems like the next best thing.

***

He wakes up feeling such a sensation of peace that a little flicker in his brain wonders if he's actually dead and it's turned out he somehow got sent to heaven.

As he slowly gathers his wits about him again, he realizes he's in a modest-looking bedroom with wood-paneling on the walls. The bed beneath him is narrow; he can touch the sides of it with his fingers without stretching. The curtains are drawn against the windows, so he has no idea what the scenery outside looks like.

He focuses his hearing, holds his breath. There's wind outside. Trees rustling. No sounds of footsteps above or TVs blaring beneath, so he's probably in a house instead of a motel or apartment. He moves his hands again and doesn't feel cuffs. Not in protective custody somewhere, either.

He manages to move his head just enough to look down the length of his body. His chest is bare and there's a blanket pulled up to his waist. He clenches and unclenches his butt cheeks experimentally and concludes he's not wearing underwear or anything else on the lower half of his body. He wiggles his hips a little and feels the tugging of a catheter that's been inserted into his urethra, so he's received medical attention. He dimly remembers that now, but it's all very hazy. Another look down confirms that there's a line of sutures on his chest where the Dragon stabbed him. When he pokes around the inside of his cheek with his tongue, he feels much finer sutures there, too.

He tries to sit up and feels pain for the first time since waking. "Fuck!"

"Will?" It's Hannibal's voice coming from somewhere nearby.

"Hannibal?"

Shuffling footsteps approach the door and Hannibal appears on the threshold a few moments later. He's wearing a robe, buttoned instead of tied at the waist. He looks haggard, but he must be doing well enough to move around.

"Where are we?" Will asks.

"A place Chiyoh's been living," Hannibal says. "She's gone now. It might be some time before she returns---if she returns at all."

Will thinks back to the car ride. "She said something about me in the car, didn't she?"

"She said we should have left you on the rocks," Hannibal says. "You're a bad influence on me, according to her. I don't disagree."

Will coughs and laughs at the same time, which is a bad idea for pretty much his whole body. " _I'm_ a bad influence on _you_?"

"Who else would ever inspire me to give up my freedom?" He looks so happy when he says it, though, that it makes Will blush.

"I guess you could say the same of me," Will says. "About you."

Hannibal leans forward and Will thinks for a moment he's about to be kissed. He even tilts up his head and parts his lips, waiting for it...

...and then Hannibal just sits down on the edge of the bed.

Will curses himself for being disappointed. He tells himself it's a lingering effect of the thoughts he had while he was being drugged for surgery. He can't be held accountable for thinking about Hannibal's ankles or... other things. It's just bled over into his conscious mind, is all.

"There's a boat," Hannibal says, not quite looking at him. "Small, not new, but in good shape. To replace the one you left in Italy, if you want it. Or... or it can be ours."

"I have one question first," Will says.

Hannibal looks so eager. "Anything."

"Do you plan to try to eat me again?" Will asks. "Because I _cannot_ stress enough that no part of me is for eating. Not even any of the nonessential parts. We didn't survive all of this just for you to turn me into a sandwich---oh, who am I kidding? It would be a charcuterie plate or a savory mousse or something, wouldn't it?"

Hannibal looks stricken. His face goes slack for a moment before he regains his composure. "It would have been the greatest regret of my life if Mason's men hadn't intervened that day," he says. He looks down at his hands. "I'm not fond of regret, and I'm even less fond of remaking my mistakes."

Will takes his old life and builds a fort around it so that there's no going back.

"I want the boat," he says. Hannibal glances up at him. "For both of us."

* * *

  
**Setting Sail**

  
The boat is, indeed, small. A motor cruiser from the late 90s meant for casual saltwater fishing trips and not long-distance voyages, she's barely 30 feet long. That's only a hair smaller than his Nola, but for two grown men it's going to be cramped. The teak deck is silver with age and exposure, but it's obvious whoever owned the boat before treated her kindly.

"I thought it best not to opt for a sailboat," Hannibal says. "Considering our current physical condition."

The interior is stacked with boxes of non-perishable food, fuel, and bottled water. There's a small watermaker and solar panel for them to install once they've healed enough to manage it, so they won't have to come ashore except to refuel once their stores run out.  But the end result is that there's barely an inch of free room for them to move. Even the boat's one cabin is so fully packed that the tiny mattress is the only flat surface not spoken for.

"We'll have to share the bed," Hannibal says, following behind him. "Or we could take turns sleeping sitting up behind the steering controls."

An image springs to Will's mind: He and Hannibal pressed together, front to back, legs fitting together like a dovetail joint to make use of the space. 

"Maybe we should take turns," Will says, shaking loose of the image. "One of us should be awake through the night to keep watch."

***

Their first night at sea is miserably cold.

Hannibal volunteers to take first watch, reminding Will that he's accustomed to needing very little sleep, and hands him the one blanket he managed to stuff into the boat's stores.

Will shivers so hard on the narrow mattress, he imagines his sutures shaking loose. He hugs himself so tightly that his muscles ache, the pain breaking through the medication he's been taking. Freezing mist gathers on the outside of the small, rectangular windows angled over his head, taunting him. It's always so cold wherever he goes.

He drifts in and out of sleep. At some point, Hannibal comes to check on him and gently lays a hand on his shoulder.

"You're freezing half to death," Hannibal says when he stirs. "I can hear your teeth chattering from the cockpit. Move over so I can get in behind you."

"S'posed to be keepin' watch," Will reminds him even as he's inching over to one side of the mattress.

"I'm keeping watch over _you_ ," Hannibal says.

He climbs in under the blanket and snugs their bodies together. Will feels Hannibal's hands reaching for the hem of his shirt.

"Wha--"

"Skin to skin contact will increase your body temperature more efficiently," Hannibal says. "Would you rather finish freezing to death?"

"Guess not," Will says, gingerly moving his arms so Hannibal can pull his shirt the rest of the way off. "C'mon, then."

After a little more physical negotiation in the microscopic bed, Will feels Hannibal settle against him again. Chest hair brushes against his shoulder blades. He's pretty sure the soft little point he feels pressing into his skin is a nipple.

* * *

  
**Permission to Come Aboard**

  
Something scratches at the windows.

A bird this far out at sea? Will opens his eyes, blinking until his vision adjusts to the darkness. He looks around the tiny cabin. The bed is empty and cold again. He shivers and pulls the covers over his bare chest.

"Hannibal?"

The scratching comes again.

When he looks up at the window, he sees the angular silhouette of an old acquaintance staring back at him. Will has thought of him as the Stag Man, and later as the Wendigo, but of course he's Hannibal. He was Hannibal before Will knew it, and now he points at Will with a long finger that ends in a sharp claw, then at himself.

Instead of sweating and convulsing with fear as he once would have, Will just nods at him because he understands the gesture to have meant, " _May I come in?_ "

Instantly, this seven-foot-tall version of Hannibal is standing inside the cabin with him without having to open the window. The dispensation of logic tells Will he must be in a dream... in which case, nothing that happens from this point on really means anything. Sometimes dreams are just dreams, he tells himself, especially when tinged with powerful pain medication. It also means nothing that happens can have any real-world consequences. Screw his injuries and the timing and all the reasons he shouldn't want this. He can want this _now_ , while he sleeps.

He throws his arms around Hannibal's gaunt neck and pulls him into a brutally hard kiss. Those teeth are sharp and his tongue as it presses past Will's lips is almost searingly hot. Will slides one hand up the back of Hannibal's smooth scalp and wraps his fingers around the base of one of his inky black antlers.

Will pulls away and angles Hannibal's head back, controlling his ability to move. "Is it crazy that I've kind of missed you? Don't answer that---of course it is. God, I'm so fucked up."

Hannibal smiles at him. He looks even more like Hannibal---the real Hannibal---than he once did. His leather-black chest is covered with silvery hair where it used to be bare and his eyes are warm amber like Hannibal's, not empty and soulless. Instead of fetlocks, he now has Hannibal's ankles. God, those beautiful ankles!

Will pushes him onto the bed and follows him down, clambering into his lap and seeking out his mouth for another kiss. He is magically free of wounds now, so the kisses only hurt because of those sharp, sharp teeth and not because the muscle of his cheek is still healing.

Strong hands come up over his hips and tear apart his sweatpants at the seams. Will makes encouraging sounds---possibly best described as a whimpered _yes_  and _fuck yes_ \---and he's already harder than he can remember ever being, because of course this is what he's wanted for longer than he realized. He reminds himself it's just a dream. It doesn't have to _mean_ anything, so he grabs Hannibal's clawed hand and guides it to his cock.

"Softly," Will instructs him. "Softly... for now."

Hannibal strokes him from root to tip, the hard knobs of his knuckles pressing into the shaft of his cock in the most blissfully awful way. It's nearly more pleasure than he can take. Will hears himself moaning in desperation and doesn't even care. He raises up on his knees and changes his angle so he can rut into Hannibal's clenched fist. "More, more," Will pants, and Hannibal responds by tightening his grip. Will braces one hand on the mattress and another on Hannibal's antler. He thrusts so hard, the boat rocks beneath them. Pressure builds low in his belly. "Oh, God, I'm going to---"

"Will?"

He blinks at hearing his name. "Huh?"

"Will, wake up." It's Hannibal's---the real Hannibal's voice. Will grabs onto it like a life preserver tossed to a drowning man.  "There's a storm."

He's so deep in the dream that just opening his eyes dizzies him. The boat lurches hard enough to jostle him. Everything is out of focus, but he can tell he and Hannibal have somehow switched positions in the middle of the night. He's curled against Hannibal's back, with his rock-hard dick nestled insistently against Hannibal's perky ass. Oh, Jesus, he's even managed to pull his own sweatpants down at some point.

He scoots backward as much as he can in the confined space, but Hannibal seems not to have noticed anything untoward. Or, if he has, he doesn't act like it.

"There's a storm," Hannibal says again.

"Oh, right." Will forces himself to concentrate as he pulls his sweatpants back into position as sneakily as he can. "Um... is everything strapped down? The boxes?"

"I'll make certain," Hannibal says. He slips out from beneath the blanket, then tucks it under Will's shoulders to trap the heat. "Stay. Keep warm. I'll be back if I need help."

Will watches him as he climbs ever so carefully out of the cabin, his bare back a map of purple and green bruises and patched up with gauze and tape. Will knows he shouldn't be thinking, "God, that's a sexy back and I'd love to see my spunk all over it," but it's exactly the thought that occurs to him.

"God damn it," he curses under his breath.

He can't pretend these are thoughts that occur to him because he's drugged up or dreaming. He's not dreaming now and the meds have worn off. He'd accepted that he "ached" for Hannibal, in some hazy undefined way, but there's nothing undefined about it except his own denial. Even as he was prepared to leave the entirety of his old life behind, he was still in denial about the whole truth of what lay ahead. He aches for Hannibal in _every possible_ _way_. He wants Hannibal's heart, his soul, and every part of his body from his perfect ankles to the top of his devilish head, and everything in between. Fuck, he _really_ wants the everything that's in between.

He pushes the heel of his hand against his dick in a vain attempt to will away his erection. It doesn't work.  _Fuck_. He has to come to terms with the reality of his situation.

He accepts that he's in love with this cannibalistic serial killer.

He accepts that he wants to fuck and be fucked  _by_ this cannibalistic serial killer.

And he accepts that he hasn't the faintest idea of how to broach the subject  _with_ this cannibalistic serial killer.

_Fuck._

* * *

**Shore Leave**

 

Hannibal's fingers are gentle and his expression utterly tender as he snips and tugs away the last of Will's facial sutures. The ones on the inside of his mouth began to dissolve two days earlier and the swelling in his cheek is barely noticeable now.

"Do you think there'll be much of a scar?" Will asks. "Not to be vain, or anything."

"Your beard will grow in and cover most of it," Hannibal says, dabbing away the dots of blood with gauze and antiseptic. He winks. "I can guarantee you'll be as handsome as ever, with or without a scar."

Feeling encouraged, Will reaches up for Hannibal's hand and holds it against his face. "Thank you."

"For what?" Hannibal asks, his expression curious. "The compliment, or the medical attention?"

"Both," Will says. He makes hard eye contact. Hannibal just keeps gazing back at him in that puzzled, tender away. Will realizes nothing is going to change unless he changes it. So he takes a deep breath and says, all in a rush, "I think we should refuel in Savannah and maybe stay in a motel or a hotel for the night because it would be nice to have a hot shower, don't you think?"

Hannibal gives him a small frown. "Do you think that's safe?"

"We'll make sure it's safe first," Will says. Suddenly all he can think about is getting Hannibal into the shower and soaping up his entire body. They've had nothing but cat baths since they set sail, partly out of consideration for their wounds and partly to conserve water. "What do you say?"

Hannibal seems doubtful for several moments, but eventually nods. "If that's what you want, then it's what I want."

"Do I ever hope that's true," Will says.

He's never seen Hannibal look more confused.

***

They rent a room at an economy motor lodge with dully colored orange stucco walls that Will thinks _might_ have been a brighter shade of Georgia peach at one time. That the carpets used to be anything other than a sickly sort of olive green is up for debate. The most important thing is that the place is frequented by budget-minded truckers and drifters, and the guy at the desk takes their money without even looking up from his phone at them.

Much to Will's utter delight, Hannibal starts undressing as soon as they close the door behind themselves. He shrugs out of his coat, unwraps the scarf that's been hiding most of his face, and steps out of his deck shoes. Will watches, his pulse quickening, as Hannibal pulls off his sweater and undershirt. Could it really be this easy? Here Will's been wondering how he should confess his very naked feelings for Hannibal, and Hannibal just goes and... strips right in front of him. When Hannibal unzips his pants and lets them puddle at his feet, it seems to Will like he's going to get exactly what he wants.

_But then..._

With fingers suddenly clumsy from excitement, Will hurries to shed his own jeans, kicking off his boots as he hops from foot to foot, and Hannibal interrupts him.

"Oh, I thought I'd take the first shower," he says, not even having the gall to look down at Will's exposed dick. "Did you want to go first? It was rude of me not to offer."

Will stops hopping and drops his ass onto the lumpy, queen-size bed. "No, you go first," he hears himself say. "I...guess I just got ahead of myself."

Hannibal stands before him, buck naked in all his pale, slightly soft-in-the-middle glory, not even remotely aroused and giving him the friendliest, most apologetic look Will has ever seen.

"I promise not to use all the hot water," Hannibal says, and takes his bare little ass right into the bathroom, alone. _Alone._ Of all the indignities _._

Will groans and flops back onto the mattress, not even caring that the motion has made his chest and shoulder hurt all over again. He thinks about wallowing in self-pity. He's given up everything and he can't even get laid. He thinks about ordering hamburger pizza from a chain pizzeria, covered in ketchup and reconstituted onions, just to spite Hannibal. Maybe he'll see if they can throw in a couple of Mountain Dews, to add insult to injury.

He comes to his senses. There's cruel and then there's bad chain pizzeria pizza. He's not going to achieve his goals that way, as fun as it would be in the moment. He stores the notion away for a later date, though, just in case.

He pushes himself out of the bed, pulls up his jeans, and scribbles out a quick note on what passes for the motel stationery.

_Back in a little while -- W_

* * *

**SOS**

 

He's just stolen a small bottle of personal lubricant from a drugstore down the block from the motor lodge.

He's just stolen a small bottle of personal lubricant from a drugstore down the block from the motor lodge because, in his haste to seduce Hannibal, he walked right the fuck out of their room without any money. He risked getting caught and sent to jail over a little bottle of lube just so he could offer up his rear end to the man who currently seems oblivious to his desires. "Idiot, idiot," Will curses himself as he tries to power-walk as quickly as he can away from the scene of the crime without looking like the kind of person who would steal a small bottle of personal lubricant from a drugstore down the block from the motor lodge.

"It'll all be worth it," he tells himself as he lets himself back into the room. "Jesus _fuck_ , I hope it'll all be worth it."

He finds Hannibal sitting on the edge of the bed, towel around his waist, hair sticking up at odd angles from air drying. He holds the ancient, almond beige phone in his lap, the receiver in one hand. He looks up at Will, eyes widening.

"You came back."

Will frowns. "Of course I came back. Hannibal, what are you talking about?"

"I thought you'd left," Hannibal says. "The way you seemed so eager to come ashore, I thought you'd come to your senses about going away with me."

Will's stomach drops. He nods at the phone. "What did you do?"

Hannibal hangs up the receiver. "You were gone an hour. I almost called the police to turn myself in."

"But you didn't?" Will prompts. Hannibal shakes his head. Will's stomach cautiously returns to its rightful place. "Jesus Christ! Didn't you see my note?"

He gestures towards the dresser at the pad of paper under the television. Hannibal's cheeks color as he glances over to where Will is pointing. "I... No, I didn't. I was so sure you'd gone for good, it didn't occur to me."

Will opens his mouth to confess the entire reason he left, to tell Hannibal about stealing the lube from the drugstore, and about the dream he had that finally opened his eyes... but all that comes out is an exasperated sigh. He's exasperated at himself, at Hannibal, just---everything. But most of all, he doesn't want it to happen like this. After everything, he can't let the first time he lays all his feelings out come about because Hannibal freaked out in a shitty motel. He doesn't want it to be a reassurance. He wants it to stand on its own.

"I just went to get a couple of personal hygiene things," he says, which is enough of the truth that it's not a lie.

"I apologize," Hannibal says, straightening his back and summoning a little dignity. "This is all rather new to me."

"Yeah, to me, too," Will says, which is also not a lie. "Come on, you're exhausted. For all you claim to not need sleep, you obviously do. Let's just... let's just go to bed."

"What about your shower?" Hannibal asks.

"It'll be there in the morning," Will says.

He takes off everything but his undershirt and boxer shorts and climbs in bed behind Hannibal. God, he smells amazing. He smells like cheap motel shampoo, but he smells amazing. Will buries his nose in the back of Hannibal's neck and carefully avoids moving his hips anywhere _near_ that tempting ass.

For now, he'll just have to suffer until a better moment presents itself. He'll try flirting with Hannibal, or _at_ him, until he gets some indication that the time is right.

How long could it possibly take?

 

-end-


End file.
